It’s proving to be a challenge to disarm this group of Knights who can attack from all angles.
The Holy Trinity Academy Knights showcased their top to bottom-depth on homecourt to win the 23rd annual Knights Classic senior boys basketball tournament in convincing fashion Jan. 10 at the Okotoks school.
“We were consistent this weekend,” said Knights head coach Sam Aiello. “We’ve been consistent all season, really. Everybody who goes into the game is contributing and I think that’s what makes us difficult to play, we don’t have a lot of drop-off from one through player 11 or 12. Everyone goes in and is just consistent and works hard.
“That’s why we’ve had the successful season we’ve had so far this year.”
The Knights fought off a strong start from the visitors in the first quarter to chase Sherwood Park’s Salisbury Composite Sabres 88-49 in the tournament final.
The Sabres caused early problems for the Knights before HTA put on a new group of five players and the team switched from man-to-man to a zone defence to great effect.
“We just started out a little slow, a little tentative, which we haven’t done this year, it was a little uncharacteristic,” said Aiello. “That’s the beauty of our team, we throw on the next five and the guys who come out aren’t upset they’re coming out, they know we didn’t have the greatest shift there. The next group comes in and they kind of pick up the play for us.
“It’s infectious from there and everyone just buys in again.”
The Knights closed the opening quarter on a 7-0 run to take a 19-18 advantage.
Elias Ralph had a steal and lay-up and then hit a three-pointer on consecutive possessions with Miguel Yu and Ewan Fuhr hitting jump shots to wrestle momentum away from the Sabres.
“In the second half of the first quarter we switched to a zone defence because when we were in man their cutting was a lot of cutting that we just couldn’t get on,” Ralph said. “In the zone we slowed them down and got a lot of steals and that brought up the energy.”
The Knights took over in the second quarter on a 21-3 run, punctuated by a deep three pointer from point guard Riley Thorn and went into the half up 42-25.
“Coach really talked to us and said we’ve got to keep the energy up, we’ve got the home crowd and they want us to play well in our home tournament,” Yu said. “We just played really good defence. When we switched to that 1-2-2 zone that really worked.
“The good thing about our team is we have a really deep bench so if one guy isn’t playing well other guys will step up.”
The Knights continued to shoot the lights out in the second half and closed the third quarter with some razzle-dazzle as Ralph and Mason Black combined for a highlight reel lay-up for the former.
Ralph added a dunk in transition in the fourth quarter to put an exclamation point on the result while Yu was a thorn on the side of the Sabres all night with his trademark tenacity.
“That’s his game, he just plays with tenacity and is always that spark kind of guy,” Aiello said. “He did that for us today and once we got that spark going it really hurt Sal and their sails were just kind of knocked out and they didn’t recover from it.”
The Knights got a measure of revenge in the semifinal, dispatching the defending champion Chestermere Lakers 79-53 in a rematch of the 2019 tournament final.
Fuhr had a team-high 21 points with Ralph adding 18.
“Chestermere is leading the tournament in wins, with six, and we really wanted our name in our tournament,” Ralph said. “Now we’re tied with them and hopefully next year we can take it back.”
HTA opened the tournament by ruling over the Lord Beaverbrook Lords by a 105-28 count.
Fuhr paced the offence with 22 points with Ben Leggett contributing 20 points, 10 in the fourth quarter, while Yu had 12 points and post Tobias Krueger chipped in with 10 points.
“I think everyone is just buying into our goal, which is provincials and how far we can go there and everyone is accepting their role,” Ralph said. “A lot of teams cut their bench short in these tournaments and when we can keep rolling with our depth it tires them out and we can just keep going.”
Ralph, a Grade 11 point guard, was named the Knights Tournament MVP.
“Elias has got great poise,” Aiello said. “What I like about him is he never gets too crazy excited or too down on himself, he’s just really balanced. I think that mental toughness is what makes him the player he is, on top of, of course he’s an incredibly skilled player and all the other tools he has.
“He’s a tall point guard, that’s a treat to have on the team. You don’t get that very often in a career as a coach, it’s been nice to coach that.”
The Lakers earned the bronze medal over Chinook. Winston Churchill took the consolation with Bishop Carroll winning the seventh place match.
HTA is now 15-1 on the season in all competitions as it gears up for a provincial run with the 4A South Central Zone championship hosted by the Knights.
“I’m on the provincial ranking committee and we’re going to do rankings next week for the first set and we’re just excited that maybe we can be in that mix,” Aiello said. “Since we moved up to 4A, it’s been four years, we haven’t been a ranked team provincially and there might be a chance here for the first time to get into those rankings.”
